My long weekend
Its been a busy week. Ive only been working seeing patients til 2 this week as I have been meaning to get time to study for the course Ive enrolled in. Sometimes I don't know why I do these things to myself. I distinctly recall that we'd be taught some ridiculous statistic in medschool like 1 in 10 or 1 in 5 of all people will have a mental health issue in their lifetime and wondered if having it at the end of 6th year exams (while awaiting results) was one of those ominous signs of the career that lay ahead of me. Then, just like laboring women swear under their breadths never to do this again (go through labour) I also swore I would never subject myself to study ever again (bit ridiculous really when I had just signed up on a lifelong sentence really of study or...the whole swim or sink analogy as in medicine, nothing is ever concrete and their is always some new discovery/wonderdrug/allergy/fact that this food is bad/good/on the fence type of advice being thrown around that we need to constantly be on top of. ) Now, 14 yrs down the line I can proudly say Ive signed up to some serious study and more then a little updater course.Now I really have to find time in this lifestyle that doesnt give me much, to do such a mundane thing as read 100 journal articles.
I took yesterday off...no, not to study but help the hubby do some catering for our business. I know deep inside its that whole , do anything to have an excuse not to study , that made me do it- but my staff member who helps at work (organising clinic patients) also called in that her dad had been admitted to hospital so it kind of made sense not to work. (this would not go down with our patients should they find out) And it will cost me later but oh well. So, in the midst of all the catering chaos...a phone call, actually a missed phone call, then a text and a whatsap later from people I know, saying the person trying to call me before, is trying to call me (number showing up just displays a business name- a business that is 2hours away from me, and I can just see are going to have a tourist that they will either want me to see (which there is no way in hell today that I can , not to add, there is a hospital within a few minutes of them) or 2) they will try to solicit medical advice from me over the phone (which I hate doing...as much as everyone thinks its a 'nice 'thing to do...it is so unprofessional and unsafe in so many ways. I cant see the patient and take a decent enough hisotry or examine them...lord knows I give them some half hearted advice and they go on to have a major reaction or their illness is actually alot worse they communicate and then go on to deteriorate rapidly..it would certainly land me in a lot of shit)...and goes against all the reasons and values that resulted in my opening my own practice. In any case, it is also so morally belittling that health is the one industry where everyone feels it ok to just solicit free advice off you if they feel they have a slight relationship with you...like shopkeeper up the road or taxi driver I may use once a year. You wouldnt necessarily call up a lawyer and do the same....anyways, rant over. So what was the call about (as I answered eventually being the morally obliging (idiot) of a person I am.
Mrs A is on holiday and has a know double herniated disc in her lower back (ie shes injured it before) upon gallavanting up and down the beach lifting heavy kayaks (surely after a few cocktails as anyone else sensible would NOT be doing any heavy lifting with this backround) she pulled it again. So, Mrs A has asked the kind receptionist to call me because 1) shes in a ton of pain since yesterday and cant get out of bed. Shes taken a grand total of 1X dose of brufen that made her feel a little better and then IT ALL CAME BACK... (der) and now 2) she wants to organise the ambulance to take her all the way to the airport (on the OTHER ISLAND) so she can catch her flight, her flight is tomorrow but she wants to change it tonight. Basically in local lingo, she has just asked if she could have a heart transplant, and that she specifically wants the prime ministers heart.
After screening with a few questions that she wasn't suffering from a major spinal issues (cauda equina is when there is so much pressure/pushing/compression on spinal cord for many reasons that you become paralysed but also cant pee or poo) I had to give her the big fat taste of reality of where she was (underdeveloped island with only 2 working abundances out of 4 - reserved for CRITICALLY Ill patients and (not a personal chaufer /taxi service) that the most sensible thing for her to do -was to have strict bed rest, REGULAR pain relief, and if things got worse GO TO THE HOSPITAL and this would be the only way, someone might even dream of thinking of putting her in an ambulance to the main hospital and if youre lucky or have a large sum of money, to the airport. She replied that that was the advice she was given last time and that was fine. She didnt realise the white building across the road was a hospital.
:)
I took yesterday off...no, not to study but help the hubby do some catering for our business. I know deep inside its that whole , do anything to have an excuse not to study , that made me do it- but my staff member who helps at work (organising clinic patients) also called in that her dad had been admitted to hospital so it kind of made sense not to work. (this would not go down with our patients should they find out) And it will cost me later but oh well. So, in the midst of all the catering chaos...a phone call, actually a missed phone call, then a text and a whatsap later from people I know, saying the person trying to call me before, is trying to call me (number showing up just displays a business name- a business that is 2hours away from me, and I can just see are going to have a tourist that they will either want me to see (which there is no way in hell today that I can , not to add, there is a hospital within a few minutes of them) or 2) they will try to solicit medical advice from me over the phone (which I hate doing...as much as everyone thinks its a 'nice 'thing to do...it is so unprofessional and unsafe in so many ways. I cant see the patient and take a decent enough hisotry or examine them...lord knows I give them some half hearted advice and they go on to have a major reaction or their illness is actually alot worse they communicate and then go on to deteriorate rapidly..it would certainly land me in a lot of shit)...and goes against all the reasons and values that resulted in my opening my own practice. In any case, it is also so morally belittling that health is the one industry where everyone feels it ok to just solicit free advice off you if they feel they have a slight relationship with you...like shopkeeper up the road or taxi driver I may use once a year. You wouldnt necessarily call up a lawyer and do the same....anyways, rant over. So what was the call about (as I answered eventually being the morally obliging (idiot) of a person I am.
Mrs A is on holiday and has a know double herniated disc in her lower back (ie shes injured it before) upon gallavanting up and down the beach lifting heavy kayaks (surely after a few cocktails as anyone else sensible would NOT be doing any heavy lifting with this backround) she pulled it again. So, Mrs A has asked the kind receptionist to call me because 1) shes in a ton of pain since yesterday and cant get out of bed. Shes taken a grand total of 1X dose of brufen that made her feel a little better and then IT ALL CAME BACK... (der) and now 2) she wants to organise the ambulance to take her all the way to the airport (on the OTHER ISLAND) so she can catch her flight, her flight is tomorrow but she wants to change it tonight. Basically in local lingo, she has just asked if she could have a heart transplant, and that she specifically wants the prime ministers heart.
After screening with a few questions that she wasn't suffering from a major spinal issues (cauda equina is when there is so much pressure/pushing/compression on spinal cord for many reasons that you become paralysed but also cant pee or poo) I had to give her the big fat taste of reality of where she was (underdeveloped island with only 2 working abundances out of 4 - reserved for CRITICALLY Ill patients and (not a personal chaufer /taxi service) that the most sensible thing for her to do -was to have strict bed rest, REGULAR pain relief, and if things got worse GO TO THE HOSPITAL and this would be the only way, someone might even dream of thinking of putting her in an ambulance to the main hospital and if youre lucky or have a large sum of money, to the airport. She replied that that was the advice she was given last time and that was fine. She didnt realise the white building across the road was a hospital.
:)
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